Welcome to The S-Curve
Now you will be able to receive the latest announcements, product updates, and our insights on the mortgage market in real time.
The name of the blog, the S-Curve, is a reflection of our logo and the central feature of our prepayment model. S-curves are seen in nature in many phenomenon, from population growth to prepayment and default models. Our first S-curve, in the early 1990s, used the arctangent function, then piece-wise linear functions, and evolved over time to be more complex and vary by FICO, loan size and LTV. This evolution encapsulates both the timeless nature of fundamental relationships and constant innovation to describe them better over time.
We hope you find the information useful and we look forward to your feedback.
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Asian Pacific Heritage MonthEvents

We at Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc. (AD&Co) stand in solidarity with the Asian community and speak out against the xenophobic ignorance that has led to increased racist attacks against Asians. We protest against these hate crimes. This is a time to celebrate the richness that we have gained from the diversity of the Asian culture. We pledge to support the heritage that is part of what makes us American.
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Mental Health Awareness MonthEvents
What does it mean to be mentally healthy? The answer is different for everyone. With all the extra anxiety that many of us have experienced since 2020, whether from uncertainty about COVID-19 or from other experiences that may be new to us, it’s important to acknowledge that it’s alright to not feel alright. Fortunately, there are numerous resources that are available locally, nationally, and in some cases through your workplace or benefits package. We might start by finding out what makes us feel better. For some, it is a brisk walk outside, a yoga class, talking to a friend, or finding a sympathetic therapist. The possibilities are endless. Let’s take this month to think about what WE need.
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Introducing AutoLDM—A New Way to Analyze Auto LoansProducts
Today marks the publication of Chris Widman's Quantitative Perspective, a comprehensive article on the newest member of our LoanDynamics suite, the Auto LoanDynamics Model. Auto LDM will be integrated into vendor systems and AD&Co tools, allowing users to perform analysis on auto loan and ABS positions. Applications include economic scenario analysis to examine the impact of unemployment scenarios or rates on defaults, losses and prepayments, stress testing for CCAR/CECL, valuation and risk measurement.
The article provides an overview of the auto loan market, discusses the underlying data used for estimation, our model architecture, and contains sections on delinquency, seasonality, unemployment and severity determinants. We look forward to your feedback – please reach out to us at support@ad-co.com if you are interested in more details or a trial.
-Eknath Belbase
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The Earth is Our Home: Let's Not Default on itEvents

Since 1970, April 22nd has been the annual day to appreciate our planet and recognize the importance of protecting it. But more and more, we realize that everyday needs to be Earth Day, and that we need to take better care of the place that gives us life. It’s becoming harder and harder to doubt the legitimacy of climate change, and how we as humans contribute it. At Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc. (AD&Co) we recognize the dramatic nature of climate change and how it effects our neighbors around the world. As experts in the mortgage market, we’re looking at the ways extreme weather, such as hurricanes, floods, drought, and melting glaciers, affects people’s homes, their way of life—and the availability and price of housing.
In our December 2020 Pipeline article we anticipated an increasing expectation on the need to measure and disclose exposure to climate change, and laid out some of the analytic challenges. We have focused on studying the existing research, reaching out to climate risk research firms, and understanding the landscape of what is available and what needs to be developed. As we explore different product ideas, we expect to reach out to our existing clients to help us understand better the ways we can continue to deliver leading-edge analytics in this space.
For additional information, check out this panel featuring AD&Co’s Eknath Belbase.
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Diversity Awareness Lifts all PeopleThoughts
To seek "causes" of poverty in this way is to enter an intellectual dead end because poverty has no causes. Only prosperity has causes. – Jane Jacobs, Activist and Author
Here at Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc. (AD&Co) we have been aware since our founding in 1992 that diversity of all kinds makes for a more interesting culture, a better exchange of ideas, and ultimately better products and services. However, for all of us, globally and in the U.S., there is still a long way to go. We are focused on increasing our sensitivity to diversity and unconscious bias and have made diversity outreach in recruiting, mentorship, vendors, charitable giving—indeed, in every aspect of our business a priority. We have been focused on the fact that every person deserves an equitable life. Our guiding principle is that we are all people and we all deserve to be treated equally.
This is especially relevant to issues of housing as AD&Co’s Richard Cooperstein has addressed in the article he co-authored with Ken Fears from the National Association of Realtors (NARS) and Susan Wachter of the Wharton School for Business, University of Pennsylvania, Government-Sponsored Enterprises: Their Viability as Public Utilities published in the journal “Housing Policy Debate,” Volume 31, 2021 - Issue 1: The Mortgage Market in the Time of COVID / Smart Cities, Housing, and Community Development Policy.
The S-Curve Archives
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Events
CRTcast, a new podcast series under Freddie Mac’s Home Starts Here programming, focuses on credit risk transfer (CRT) and it’s three spokes: securities, (re)insurance and mortgage insurance. Freddie Mac leadership together with CRT industry experts cover current and relevant topics.
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News
We are proud to announce that Richard Cooperstein has accepted the position of co-chair of the Structured Finance Association’s (SFA) Regulatory Capital & Liquidity committee.
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NewsToday we acknowledge the Year of the Ox. Happy Lunar New Year! We stand in solidarity with the Asian community against all violence and racism. Here’s to a year of peace, health and prosperity.
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NewsThis February, AD&Co celebrates a central part of American History—Black History. The richness of the contributions of the Black community as a whole, and innumerable remarkable individuals, can not be overstated.
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Thoughts
The January 14, 2021 revisions of the Preferred Stock Purchase Agreements between the Treasury and the GSEs[i] (Government Sponsored Enterprises) along with the Treasury Department Blueprint on Next Steps for GSE[ii] Reform perhaps represent the end of a decade- long effort to create multiple competitive enterprises and end the government support of the GSEs.
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NewsMartin Luther King, Jr. was a great leader and inspirational speaker. His wisdom can serve as a guide for as long as we remember him. Andrew Davidson & Co would like to acknowledge a fraction of what he gave us with two relevant quotes that seem fitting in 2021.
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Thoughts
In the spring of 2019, National Association of Realtors® (NAR), together with financial-market experts Susan Wachter (Wharton) and Richard Cooperstein (Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc.) proposed completing the transition of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Enterprises) into market utilities in a publication entitled “A Vision for Enduring Housing Finance Reform.” This work builds on Richard Cooperstein and Andrew Davidson’s 2017
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Thoughts
Separating signal from noise is at the heart of what we do at AD&Co. One of the key tools we utilize for that purpose is a sophisticated set of model performance trigger reports. These monthly reports not only alert us to model drift but also point to possible causes for the drift.
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News
We proudly launched our new website on November 13th. As you familiarize yourself with the new look of ad-co.com, you will come to know the many new offerings we provide. Along with the new website, we have organized our products as a menu of models and applications for a wide range of investor appetites. Let us review the menu of our product offerings.
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News
Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc. (AD&Co), is proud to support Fite Analytics’ innovative cloud-native Mortgage-Backed Securities Analytics Service. The Fite Analytics solution incorporates AD&Co’s LoanDynamics models that provide forecasts of voluntary prepayments, defaults and losses that drive risk analytics across the mortgage-backed securities market with comprehensive coverage.